


Words, Words, Words

by SorrySorrySorry



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Midwestern AU, Nothing sad, Pre-Canon, just some good christmas shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12991476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrySorrySorry/pseuds/SorrySorrySorry
Summary: While Yorick considers himself experienced now that he's almost a year into child-nanny-ing, there are only so many things within the realm his control. What decorations go on the Christmas tree, for example. And not much else. Maybe not even the decorations.





	Words, Words, Words

Though the child’s mother detested the habit, Yorick lay on his stomach on the floor, echoing every coo and meaningless squeal Hamlet released, delighted by the array of Christmas ornaments being careful dragged just out of his reach. With one arm, Yorick searched around the pile for something the little prince could safely stick in his mouth, frowning at the selection of sharpness, glass and swallow-ables. “Looks like we’re gonna have to take a trip to Walmart for something plastic,” he sighed, shrugging and pulling a bulb out of Hamlet’s tiny fingers. His eyes drifted to the window, where the snowfall was consistent and showed no signs of stopping, just as all the Christmas music dictated. “Or maybe not.”

That same Christmas music played quietly on the home stereo in the corner. With the King and his wife away for the day, Yorick was halfway through turning the house into a veritable winter wonderland, taking the task as a kind of check of his abilities as a capable caretaker. He had become too comfortable with his position, and he reasoned he might be able to reassert his worth with a few well-strung Christmas lights. Maybe he could even make a Christmas miracle happen and get Hamlet to say his first words. Of course, if he said them without his mother’s careful, camera-assisted supervision, it might have adverse effects. Yorick eyed the prince, who was fixated on the fact that the tree lights changed color. He was far past that speaking deadline his mother had read about online, despite having taken his first steps and whatever without issue. Christmas miracle, indeed.

“You’re just trying to figure out what to say, right, Junior?” Yorick mused, offering his fingers up for the prince’s vice grip. The moment Hamlet grabbed hold, they made a mockery of shaking hands. “What do you think?” Yorick continued, sliding another bulb out of the way. “You wanna go get some better ornaments? You wanna go out in this? Looks gross, right?”

Hamlet shrieked, following Yorick’s gesture to the window with his own chubby arm. In a series of  _ puh _ ’s and  _ buh _ ’s that were supposedly on the precipice of proper language, he made his reply.

“What, you like the snow? You wanna eat it or something?”

More shrieking, shrill but adorable.

“If you want. You’re the boss. But I gotta go find your boots. I gotta call your Mama and let her known. Gotta call Mama. Ma-ma.” Despite his efforts, Yorick’s repetition was only met with a new, confused silence. “Dada,” he tried, snickering to himself at the child’s preference; still silence. He pointed to himself. “Nanny. Na-na.” Nothing. Damn.

Pushing off the floor, Yorick scooped the baby into his arms, dropping the scattered ornaments into a box where they couldn’t be stepped on as he hummed along to the beginnings of  _ Feliz Navidad _ . With one last disdainful look out at the elements, he turned away, heading down the hall with Hamlet at his hip until he got to the nursery. There, he wrestled with the prince’s kicking feet to get them inside a pair of boots, then the rest of him inside a snowsuit. The whole ensemble was more expensive than baby clothes ever should be, and all for Hamlet to fidget in discomfort, his face scrunching up as he decided he was too warm. Yorick’s own outerwear included an old pair of boots and a thin jacket from the thrift store, both of which Hamlet’s mother refused to let him leave the house in whenever she was around. But she wasn’t, so Yorick gleefully wandered out into the snowfall, scarf tied horridly under his chin to keep his ears warm, baby strapped to his chest.

They were a dynamic duo, and those from town who didn’t have an aversion to Yorick’s mannerisms came up to him on the bus to say hello. They waved at Hamlet, who became suddenly sullen when introduced to the public; when Yorick jokingly remarked that he might just hate people, he received a critical stare until he followed his statement by the thin promise that he was kidding. Instead, he made some excuse that Hamlet was tired, maybe hungry, fishing a bottle out of his bag of Baby Outing Supplies. Like the spiteful little form he was, Hamlet refused to go along with the jest, leaving a group of people on the bus convinced that Yorick was simply a terrible nanny. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” Yorick whispered, all too aware of how quickly gossip spread to the waiting ears of the child’s mother.

Hamlet sputtered in response, now reaching for the bottle solely for the fact that it was about to be put away. 

“Oh, you were making a joke, too. Think you’re funnier than me?”

A series of unintelligible  _ goo _ ’s and  _ ga _ ’s came before the bottle was close enough for Hamlet to get a hold of it.

“Nice try, Junior, but I’m hilarious.”

It took a hot minute for the now empty fields of farmland, overtaken by snow, to turn into a series of buildings, and even longer the bus to pass by them. Plows or no, the roads were absolute shit, and the bus driver was taking the extra precaution, stopped at every light and pedestrian downtown. After a solid half an hour, Yorick resolved to walk, hopping out into snow that had been trampled down from three inches to one. Immediately enraptured, Hamlet dropped his bottle to reach for the falling snow, coming down from above, where there sat an uninterrupted blanket of thick, gray clouds. Have checked the forecast and knowing from experience, Yorick picked up his pace, determined to finish his errands before the gentle weather shifted to the usual blizzard. He slid on the way inside Walmart, catching himself on a bell-ringer but not stopping to donate to her cause. They had a Christmas aisle to get to.

Hamlet’s head craned behind him, his wide eyes taking in a sudden influx of red and green. “We’re looking for fun ornaments, Junior. Keep an eye out,” Yorick cautioned, getting himself distracted by the variety of noise-making, plush figures. He activated as many as he could before a passing customer gave him a dirty look; it was worth it, however, as the prince screamed, thrilled with the combination of sounds and movements coming from snowmen he had previously assumed to be boring and inanimate. 

Before they moved on, Yorick plucked a Rudolph stuffed animal down from the shelf, setting it in Hamlet’s arms. With each squeeze it was given, it began anew in singing the character’s cardinal song, starting over and over as Hamlet took his liberties shaking it and pulling at the nose. Yorick smiled. His mother would hate it. 

It took a great amount of might to wrestle the toy away once the two of them got to the ornaments, as Hamlet was in love with the ability of the reindeer to repeat itself ad infinitum. “Can you say ‘Rudolph’?” Yorick tried, jaw stiff as he tried to force it out of the prince’s hands without sending the other into a tear-stricken panic. “‘Rudolph’?”

Hamlet cried out in a string of  _ bah _ - _ bah _ - _ bah _ ’s, translating into what was ultimately a hard no. Yorick sighed, wrenching the toy away the moment the prince was distracted by a hanging bulb which bore his reflection. By staring, he initiated a long process of Yorick pulling down ornaments that caught his attention, which he pawed briefly before deciding on a better one sitting still on the shelf. They went through three generic shapes, five snowmen and two different iterations of Santa Claus before the game became tiring.

“You have to pick  _ one _ ,” Yorick insisted, dangling an ornament in front of the prince’s nose in hopes of enticing him. “One. Understand? One.”

Hamlet began to cry.

“Okay, two.”

He was still crying because he was a baby who had no sense of quantity, and he would continue crying until Yorick searched in the Outing bag for any of his numerous pacifiers, popping a red one in the prince’s mouth to quiet him. “Now pick one,” Yorick repeated, returning again to the ornament selection. He held up another few, in the end tossing whatever Hamlet showed the slightest interest in into the cart (a snowman, a pair of Santa’s boots and a nativity scene). 

Though there was no sense of the outside world from within the bowels of the Walmart, Yorick got the forecast he expected from passersby, some who spoke loudly about how fast the snow had picked up--just like it did every year--and some who brushed the snow in thick piles off of their hats and jackets. In any combination of hints, Yorick knew he had already taken too long. “It’s because you couldn’t decide,” he said bitterly, pressing a firm kiss to Hamlet’s forehead. “...And you can only make up for it with a complete sentence. So, go ahead whenever you’re ready.”

Hamlet stared, pacifier eventually dropping out of his mouth as he laughed at the visual picture of pain painted across Yorick’s face. 

“You’re going to kill me. I’ll die this way.”

The continued laughter, rich and delightful as it was, garnered the attention of those along the way to the checkout, making the trip all the longer now that it was rife with social navigation. Those who didn’t recognize the child immediately as the wealthiest so-many-month-old in town still felt the need to come up and compliment him, feeling from a distance that it might offer some form of reward to Yorick, who they, for a brief moment, assumed to be a single father until they came to their senses and noticed the entirely different complexions between the two of them. Keeping up the facade only mattered the moment Yorick reached the end the checkout line, where another stranger turned to compliment his baby, and that stranger was attractive and noticeably without a wife.

Sure, it was a long shot in this corn-fed neck of the woods, but--

The stranger waved at Hamlet, who immediately shifted temperaments to be less accommodating. “He’s adorable. You’re watching him for his Mama?”

“Actually, I just found him in this cart,” Yorick said, words coming out like a string of sarcastic scarves at a magic show. “Haven’t been caught yet,” he continued, winking and instantly regretting it. “Just kidding,” he finished, forcing out a laugh that would only be met with an awkward stare. It was in times like these that he really hated the midwestern hellscape he’d committed himself to. “Kill me,” he mumbled, forgetting where he was for a moment beyond, simply, ‘corn hell’.

The stranger gave a thin smile, turning back to a waiting cashier, and not another word was exchanged, save for the woman that got in line behind Yorick to offer her own obligatory baby comment. She was even so bold as to try and coax Hamlet into saying hello back to her, but the closer she got to his face, the closer Hamlet came to bursting again into tears. The closest he came to words were long, discomfited whines which could only be cured by Yorick picking him up and holding him at a distance from the woman, disappointed.  _ Feliz Navidad  _ was playing again as they broke for the exit, only for Yorick to stop dead at the doors. 

Just as the in-store gossip had dictated, the snow fell so rapidly that it overtook visibility beyond a few meager feet. The rest was a blur of gray and white, impassable and piling on top of the span of cars in the parking lot. Dead-eyed, Yorick slid his phone out of his pocket and dialed for Hamlet’s parents. “We’re stranded,” he said the moment one of them picked up. “We might die at the Walmart.”

Hamlet’s mother was less than pleased with the last bit, but she hung up with the promise that they were on the way. With the state of the parking lot alone, Yorick made himself comfortable on the floor beside a movie rental kiosk, settling in for a long wait with the baby in his lap. He fished the Rudolph toy out of the bag it had been shoved into, passing it off to Hamlet just as he became fussy. Diverted, Hamlet shook the animal just as he had before. 

_ “Rudolph the Red--Rudolph the R--Rudolph the Red-Nosed R--Rudol--Rudolph--,”   _ Yorick did his best to mimic the painful struggle of the toy as Hamlet threw it back and forth by its nose, only increasing the prince’s amusement.

An older child waiting in a similar fashion by the bottle return stared, either feeling jealous or much improved, having passed that immature point in her life where she would throw toys around without purpose. Yorick stuck his tongue out, receiving a look of shock before the child turned to her mother to tattle. “She’ll never believe you,” he mumbled, smiling as the child pointed in his direction; he feigned investment in whatever game Hamlet was playing. It had transformed from useless movement into a game, apparently.

Following a throw of the reindeer from one position to another, the prince would make some vague gesture, pointing and scolding the animal in baby gibberish before throwing it again.

“Jesus, what did Rudolph ever do to you?” Yorick snickered, deciding on a good sort of voice to use for Rudolph; he was good at voices. “‘Stop, stop, you’ll kill me. I’ll die,’” he said as Rudolph.

Always responsive to the use of a silly voice, Hamlet turned, eyes fixing on Yorick with wonder, as if he’d never seen him before. Yorick smiled wide. “What are you doing to him?” he said.

“‘Help, help! He’s killing me!’” said Rudolph.

Hamlet screeched happily, throwing the toy again and waiting for a response.

“‘I’ll die! Ow! Stop! My bones!’”

“What made you so cruel?” Yorick giggled.

“Kill me!”

Yorick giggled until he didn’t. 

“Kill me!” Hamlet repeated, though in reality, it sounded a bit closer to ‘ki-mee’. But who really gave a shit what it sounded like.

Yorick’s mouth hung open. “What?” he said, staring, unblinking, into Hamlet’s rosy visage.

Humored by the follow up to the silly voice, a funny face, Hamlet cooed happily. He said the words again and waited for the subsequent reaction, which was sudden flurry of Yorick’s emotions: part- heavensent happiness and part- intense dismay. “You--Junior, oh man--you can’t say that--oh, good job--oh, I’m so proud of you, Junior--you can’t say that, though--if your Mom finds out I taught you--okay, try ‘Mama’. Try saying ‘Mama’.”

“Kill me!” Hamlet cried again, forgetting the plush toy completely for the newfound game of causing his nanny despair.

“Mama.”

“Kill me!”

“No.”

“Ki--Kill me!”

“I’m begging you.”

The vicious back-and-forth continued for a expanse of painful minutes, until finally the prince’s attention was successfully grabbed by the arrival of his mother at the store’s entrance. As she waved, he reached for her, holding Rudolph up for her to see and confiscate the moment it sang. Hamlet’s face twisted, as he had likely been trying to initiate another round of his previous game. Instead, his mother held the toy out of reach, smiling falsely as Yorick rose to his feet. “It looks like you two had a busy day!” she said, using the voice she only used in front of Hamlet, eons warmer than what it was on average.

A sudden debate played around in the case of Yorick’s skull. He rubbed the back of his neck, having pulled his scarf off to wring nervously between his free fingers. “We, uh...we learned a lot today, didn’t we, Junior?”

Hamlet met his gaze, and Yorick was sure, for a moment, that his demise then was certain. He waited for the two deadly syllables. “No!” Hamlet shrieked.

Both his mother’s and nanny’s faces lit up like headlights out in the storm, and he broke into another fit of laughter. His mother struggled to fish her phone out of her pocket, bouncing him and urging him to repeat himself for the camera this time. With some prodding, he did, but it seemed, for the time being, ‘no’ was all. ‘No’ was enough. ‘No’ was the Christmas miracle Yorick had been looking for. 

And he couldn’t actually get Hamlet to repeat the words that came before it.


End file.
